When and Where Will You Settle Down?

The single question I get asked most often

I launched this blog and newsletter from the top floor of a building in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, and today marks a year of writing it. The Serial Travelist is turning one! For its first birthday, I wanted to answer the question I get asked most often:

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

For starters, there’s a fallacy in the question itself. It assumes that giving up my home and wandering far and wide is designed to find me my perfect home. It isn’t, but I get it. I’m doing something unconventional, some might even say ridiculous, and this is how people try to make sense of it. But nomading has never been about finding my forever home.

For 40 years I’ve had various homes, and none of them ever felt quite right. In Florida I didn’t feel like I belonged, so I found my way to the Pacific NW. There, I felt like myself for the first time. After 10 glorious years in Portland, in some really old gorgeous houses, my world imploded. In six months I went from having a partner, owning a house, running a tech startup, and being a stepmom, to none of those things. Every piece of my identity was erased and what was left was pain, anger, and loss. While I tried, remaining in Portland was untenable. I boarded a plane to Brooklyn to wipe the slate clean, which worked. But after a few years, I was crumbling under the weight of living in such an amazing, yet difficult city. The way to stay there long-term never materialized for me.

Left a little piece of my heart on Henry Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

Running Away

Why does the zeitgeist only have negative language around people who leave? The cliche is “You’re running away from all your problems,” and for years I believed that was true for me. Someone who couldn’t hack it and ran away. If you look up “nomad” in the thesaurus everything that comes up is negative: vagrant, fugitive, itinerant, transient, drifter, errant, and vagabond. There aren’t any positive synonyms, just a handful of neutral ones like wayfarer or traveler.

There’s a belief that all expats are running away from something too, but I think this explanation is far too simplistic. Living life is hard, and we are all running away from things. There’s grief, trauma, and disappointment everywhere, whether you’re in your hometown, or under the palm trees of tropical islands. You can hide from it on your couch with Netflix and ice cream, or in a Roman square with an aperitivo and olives. With nomads and expats, it's called running away, but for everyone else, it’s called numbing out. You are protecting yourself from your triggers, and I believe it’s all the same game.

My mom and I visiting my great-aunts in rural Alabama

If it isn’t running away, what the hell is it?

When I’m stuck, I actively change my environment.

For me, getting unstuck is switching up my location, by going on a trip temporarily or making a more permanent move. Swapping out the current backdrop for a new one practically brings a distraction, and optimistically brings fresh perspectives and inspiration.

I’ve stopped identifying as someone who runs away from her problems. And spending a year writing about it has certainly helped clarify things. Now I’m more confident about my identity as a nomad. I’ve migrated from this label of “running away” which is reactive, to recognizing my choice to move as intentional—an act of self-preservation, which is proactive. I needed to leave, in order to survive and flourish.

After the previous cross-country moves to get unstuck, what I’m doing with nomadic life now, is collecting and curating.

Dearest Minty, my singular experience as a homeowner, on Weidler Street in Portland, OR

Collecting

I want to soak up as much life as I can, and what I’m after can be summed up as experiences and beauty. Beauty is easy in the Dolomites, but it can also be found in the monotonous suburbs. I’m making my hobby, and my job, to collect diverse experiences and glimpses of beauty from unlikely places.

And I’m not looking for one perfect place, instead, I’m looking for the individual values that speak to me in different places. Part of what compelled me to leave my former homes was that my values were not aligning. Now I’m permanently on the hunt for what resonates. Values, unlike things, I can take with me. They’re my souvenirs.

Karlovasi, Greece

Curating

If I consider nomading my job, the biggest pleasure I take in it is the curation. I construct and assemble the pieces of my life from scratch every month. Sure, a new country brings unknowns and surprises, but I still decide, city or country, summer or fall, mountains or beach.

It’s been fascinating to me that a tiny studio can be more comfortable than a two-bedroom. An open loft space can offer loads of privacy. Ugly new construction can function better than a beautiful old relic of a house. You don’t know how a space performs until you live in it, and I’m in an endless cycle of “trying before buying.” Every time I notice a space thriving I make a mental note of why it’s succeeding. Sometimes it’s the spacing of countertops in the kitchen or where the windows are. Likewise, when something that looks nice, isn’t, I drill down on what isn’t working.

It’s a curious thing to be able to control your seasons and have two springs in one year or an endless summer. Usually, I want less winter, small doses of spring and fall, and I want to extend that summer for as long as I can.

Is it time for more nature (simple, slower, isolation, hiking) or city (energy, density, running in parks, fabulous restaurants)? Do I want an extroverted or introverted culture? Am I in the mood for a new place that’s a challenge, or a soothing known quantity?

My new litmus test is produce. So much is revealed by a place’s fruit and veg. Produce is politics (Puerto Rico and Cuba) and produce is cultural values (Italy and Greece). Food has always been a motivating factor in travel. I still want to try new restaurants, but open-air markets are more exciting than Michelin stars. Produce is, quite literally, the best of a place.

Medellin, Colombia

---

But to directly address the question about when and where I’ll live, the answer is I don’t exactly know, but I doubt it will be conventional or anywhere I’ve already lived. Nomadic living has been one of the single most fulfilling choices I’ve made in life. I can confidently say, that I don’t want to live in one place, and I doubt I ever will. I can see stopping temporarily because of our health or that of our families. And while unlikely, I can admit there could be a time when I could crave one, single environment, with less chaos altogether.

But when that time comes, I see a future where I travel even slower, staying in a new place for 6 months or a year, or setting up permanent residences between three of my favorite places. Right now those are Greece, Italy, Argentina, and Mexico, but I haven’t had a chance to explore Asia yet, so I know the list will continue to grow.

But it’s difficult to imagine reversing course after going so far down this minimalist, adventure-fueled road. The idea of filling a house with furniture (again), owning a car (again), and shopping at the same stores (again) feels just as untenable as Portland did after my implosion. With how much I’m changing, I know I can’t slot back into a former version of my life.

It’s taken hundreds of times being asked “Where will you settle down?”, and this most recent, particularly difficult, re-entry into America for me to finally see it. Like any major life event, a divorce, a layoff, or a parent dying, who you were before is not who you are after. Nomading isn’t a phase, a distraction, or me running away. Heck, I’m a strategist so this was an entirely calculated choice and continues to be every day. My brain is always analyzing the cost vs. the benefits.

Like the other major life shifts mentioned above, I can’t predict who I’ll be on the other side of this. I don’t know what I’ll want or where I’ll live, but I know I’ll be different. Right now, I’m choosing to actively give up so much because I’m gaining so much. I set off on this experiment to find freedom, and three years in, I’m finally starting to taste it.

---

First sunset in Capitola Village, CA

Today is on the slow pace of Capitola, CA

I’m not that fond of my experiences to date in this area, going to Cupertino for meetings with Apple, pitching my company for investment on Sand Hill Road, or getting lost on Google’s campus. So I didn’t have the highest expectations for Capitola, but it feels worlds away from San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The houses are quaint, the breakfast burritos are plentiful, and the bikes carry surfboards. There’s a ton of beauty here, and I’m thrilled to have three weeks to explore.

Most of all I’m proud to have finished a year of regular writing. I want to thank those who’ve commented and given me feedback (yes, an entry a week is WAY too frequent), and invite you to share more. If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover or a question about nomadic life that you have, please comment below or email me at erackelman@gmail.com.

Looking ahead to year two, my goal is to start submitting to try to get my travel writing published. I’m also focusing on building up my audience, so if you know anyone who might enjoy these, please share it with them.

As always, thanks for your support and for coming along on this ride with me!